Callers Reach Out And Hope To Touch Someone

April 28, 1994|By Michael Kilian.

WASHINGTON — When your front door bell rings, do you set a rock band or string quartet to playing in your foyer before opening the door?

When your boss summons you to his office, do you respond with something like: "It just tears me up something awful that I can't be with you right now, but if you'd just let me know what it is that's on your dear sweet mind, I'll get back to you about it one of these days, if I haven't gone off to Aruba with Shannen Doherty! Ha ha ha"?

And when you encounter people on the street or at a business conference or at a party, do you pretend not to notice them until you come upon someone you'd really like to talk to?

Of course not. If you did, you'd quickly find yourself with few friends, no job and a neighborhood reputation as a less than endearing looney tune.

Yet millions of people do these things dozens of times a day-electronically-on their home answering machines, office voice mail and myriad other appallingly uncivil and inhuman electronic devices that have invaded Life As We Know It as thoroughgoingly as the Greeks did Troy.

Like most modern-day forms of progress, these wretched machines and systems have enough inherent flaws in them already. Callers have no idea whether you're actually on another telephone line, down the hall on a quick trip to the john or-why not?-actually off in Aruba with Shannen Doherty.

And in terms of corporate usage, there was nothing in Dante quite like the hell many callers find themselves in trying to fight their way out of the electronic trap of recorded touch-tone choices and options.

Yet users of these damnable things go out of their way to make them even worse-which is to say, even more rude, silly, incommunicative and time-wasting-a situation that has appalled such noted etiquette experts as Illinois' own Marjabelle Young Stewart, and recently prompted California's PhoneMate Co. to include answering machine etiquette guidelines in its manual of instructions.

Noting that more than half of American homes now use answering machines, PhoneMate Vice President Jim Oblak said: "Just as it's rude to hang up on someone without saying goodbye or using some other signoff, there are certain unspoken rules for answering machine users to follow."

"It's not a play toy," said etiquette-meister Marjabelle. "You should answer your phone the same way you answer your door."

(One should hasten to point out that she does not mean the way you answer your door when religious tract disseminators or aluminum siding salesmen or someone who has run over an inconvenient cat comes pounding on it.)

Perhaps the most outrageously obnoxious are those who greet your call with time-consuming and tinnily amplified recordings with no other purpose than to impress you with the fact that their musical tastes run to Berlioz, Afghan death chants and/or Percy Sledge-or worse. I know of one woman whose musical answering machine gives the impression she's running a bordello.

"No, no, no, no, no," said Marjabelle.

Ditto for the twit who thinks the same asinine recorded routine ("`Arf, arf!' That's my dog, Llewellyn. He's not here and neither am I, but if you leave a . . . ") is appropriate for either Pope John Paul II or a magazine salesman.

"For better or worse," said Oblak, "your tone of voice, whether or not you change your message frequently, and your choice of words all may unwittingly be saying something about you."

"All you have to say," said Marjabelle, "as nicely and cheerfully as possible, is: `Hello. Please leave your name and number and I will get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you for calling.' "

Also truly annoying is the person (it started in Hollywood) who uses the answering machine to screen calls-lying poolside or wherever on a chaise lounge listening to caller after caller leave awkward messages, but bounding to the phone-often overturning furniture-when there's someone he or she deigns worth an actual conversation.

Of course, answering machine faux pas do have their uses. If you've been besieged by a would-be swain who won't take no for an answer and keeps calling for a date, you can have someone who sounds just like Arnold Schwarzenegger record a message for you saying, "Magda can't come to the phone right now, but. . . . "

Or better, have the faux Arnold say, "We can't come to the phone right now. . . . "